1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to ropes and rope handling, particularly to nautical ropes; and most particularly to water ski ropes and tow ropes.
2. State of the Art
Water skiing is a popular sport world-wide. As in most popular sports, this sport has given rise to competitive varieties of the sport. In one popular version of competition, the competitors ski with ropes that are decreased in increments to create progressively greater challenges for the skier. In the competition, the ropes used are frequently lengths of colored polypropylene braided rope tied together at specific lengths. The knots comprise loops of rope that allow the shortened rope to be secured by a rope attachment, frequently a post, located in the middle of the boat. This method allows the rope to be accurately shortened, but the shortening procedure requires that the skier be dropped and the boat stopped to do this. Then the skier must be re-towed using the now shorter rope.
It would be greatly advantageous if the rope could be shortened accurately while under way and while the skier is still being towed by the boat and standing on the ski or skis. Such a device would save time allowing for more efficiently run and less time consuming competitions. Such a device would have to accurately reposition the rope so that all competitors would be using exactly the same rope lengths to a precision of no more than one inch.